Better than Kaka and equal to Ibrahimovic - the four Manchester United players among world's best

Manchester United have a healthy history of producing and recruiting some of the game’s most talented young stars and that has continued under Erik ten Hag.

While the potential of Rasmus Hojlund will only be truly assessed in a few years' time, the likes of Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo look real talents. Back in 2001, United had a handful of promising players on their books who looked to have a big future ahead of them.

In fact, four of them made FourFourTwo’s list of the top 100 youngsters who they believed would go on to dominate world football, one of them being ranked higher than future United stars Zlatan Ibrahimovic in 35th and Dimitar Berbatov in 82nd. Kaka, then of Sao Paulo and arguably the player to ultimately have the best careers of those on the list, was ranked a lowly 95th.

Four places ahead was Kieran Richardson. The winger ultimately became a left-back when he left United for Sunderland in 2007 via a loan spell at West Brom in the 2004/05 season.

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He tallied 81 senior appearances for United, in which scored 11 goals. Moves to Fulham, Aston Villa and Cardiff ensued before he hung his boots up in 2016 after 264 Premier League appearances, two titles and an FA Cup.

Four places above him was the little-known Ramon Calliste. The Welsh striker made the rarely trodden path of switching from United to Liverpool in 2006.

Failing to make a senior appearance he moved to Scunthorpe United before heading to Cambridge City and then West London Saracens at step 11 of the pyramid. Unsuccessful trials at Shrewsbury, Lincoln and Wycombe followed in later years, bringing an end a career that included Wales Under-21 caps.

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